


Despite what you think (I'm in love with you)

by DarkAkumaHunter



Series: Reading Between the Lines [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/F, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Mari and Chat are BFFs, Pre-Relationship, Relationship Advice, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 05:04:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8314936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAkumaHunter/pseuds/DarkAkumaHunter
Summary: Marinette Dupain-Cheng is in love. The general consensus is that the object of her affection is Adrien Agreste. Every single one of them is wrong.





	

**Author's Note:**

> (I'm supposed to be working on my teen wolf fic but some things just can't be helped - I swear, I stop writing for two months and I forget how to put words together)
> 
> So... This marks my first Miraculous fic and my first attempt at femslash. Yay?
> 
> Everyone's in their second year of collège now, Hawkmoth is still out there causing chaos, and Marinette is still bad with feelings.
> 
> (the ending is kind of abrupt but there'll be at least one sequel-ish continuation fic at some point so yeah)

Marinette closed her history book with a heavy sigh and tossed it onto the mattress behind her. Instead of continuing her doomed attempt at studying, she cast her gaze across her room, settling on the sight of a certain black-clad superhero who sat at her desk, flicking through one of her notebooks full of design ideas.

Once upon a time, if someone had suggested such a scene to her, Marinette would have laughed it off without a second thought. But after Nathanael’s jaunt as the Evillistrator, and Marinette’s first official civilian meeting with her crime-fighting partner, Char Noir had started visiting out of the blue – rarely at first, but increasing in frequency until to Marinette it seemed perfectly natural to be doing homework while he sat about, basking in silent companionship and the faint warmth and sweet scents that came from living above a bakery.

At first she hadn’t been sure what to think about the whole situation, but as time passed she found it was much easier to get along with him and appreciate his company when he wasn’t constantly trying to flirt with or impress her. Marinette knew he cared deeply for Ladybug, and it was that very fact that was currently driving her to distraction. There was something she desperately wanted advice about, but even though Chat didn’t know she was Ladybug she still felt a little guilty about going to him for help.

Still, she was supposed to be studying for a test, and if her thoughts refused to let her be then she’d just have to front up and get things out in the open.

“Chat, can I ask you something?”

His fingers stilled, holding her notebook gently open as he half-turned in her chair to glance over at her.

“Is it a homework thing?” he asked lightly, giving a cheeky grin that didn’t cover the concern in his eyes. They’d long since ditched the hesitant permissions, preferring to just call out at random whenever a thought struck, so her tone and words had him obviously worried. “Because I think asking a superhero for help is probably considered cheating _but_ I would gladly offer my services for a couple of pastries.”

Despite her misgivings, Marinette laughed. “If you want food so badly you can always just _ask_. I’m not opposed to feeding stray cats every now and again.” Her reflexive mirth died away quickly though. Her hands came together in her lap, fingers twining and untwining nervously. “But no, it’s, uh, personal.”

For a long moment Chat simply stared at her, gaze focused and assessing. He nodded once, turned to place her notebook back in her desk drawer, and then spun around to give her his full attention.

“Serious talk then,” he said. Not a prompt, but an acknowledgment.

“Yeah.” Marinette met his gaze, cleared her throat uncomfortably, and looked away. All in all she wasn’t really sure where to start – she hadn’t even made much of an effort to try and explain things to Tikki, because 5000 years of existence didn’t automatically mean the kwami understood the intricacies of modern teenage life.

Chat made a soft, worried sound when her attempt to gather her thoughts delved instead into a slightly panicked silence. “You know you don’t have to say anything if it’s something difficult to talk about, right?”

Marinette smiled softly at him. She could do this. She knew she could, because this was one of her best friends, looking up at her with worried green eyes. He wouldn’t judge her, she was confident that he wasn’t that close-minded – and if he was, she had only herself to blame for her bad judgment of character.

“No, I know. It’s because it’s difficult that I have to say it, you know? I have to talk to _someone_ about it and I really sort of need advice but I can’t ask the other person I’d usually go to because it maybe kinda sorta involves them a lot and it would be really embarrassing.”

“You may be overestimating my life experience there Princess, but I shall do my best.”

“Thanks.” Marinette took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out, trying to wash away some of her nerves. “There’s a lot of backstory to this whole situation, but I guess first I should just state the fact of the matter. I’ve been hopelessly in love with my best friend for over a year now and I have no idea what to do about it.”

There was a moment, after she said it, where an odd look passed over Chat’s face – it was there and gone in an instant, so she didn’t have a chance to try and interpret it – but then he smiled. “That’s great! I mean, it’s great? Is that great? Is there a reason you haven’t said anything to them?”

Marinette wrinkled her nose, a little surprised that he hadn’t automatically assumed it was a guy, but that at least made things easier. She didn’t stop to wonder why.

“There’s… several reasons. They all sort of loop together in the end. Hmm. Where should I- Uh, I guess it’d be best if I just came straight out with it. Do you know Alya? She runs the Ladyblog.”

Chat nodded. “Yeah, she seems like a pretty dedicated reporter.”

“She is, and she’s wonderful and reckless and also just so happens to be my aforementioned best friend.”

“I see.” Chat tilted his head slightly, watching her. To Marinette, it looked like he’d just confirmed something he already knew – which was ridiculous, because while she was sure she’d talked about Alya to him before there was no way he’d seen them together and there’s just no way he could have guessed that, right?

“Right, yeah, so there’s that. But pretty much everyone in my class already thinks I have a hopeless crush on Adrien Agreste.”

Chat blinked in surprise. “Adrien Agreste as in that guy?” he asked, pointing at her wall of annotated magazine clippings, a lot of which featured Adrien modelling various designs from his father’s company.

“Yeah, he’s in my class and there was sort of an incident when he first started school that wasn’t actually his fault, but I can rain down righteous fury pretty quick whenever Chloe’s involved so that didn’t help. Anyway I was sort of embarrassed about that for ages, and also Gabriel Agreste is like my idol so maybe I was a little awestruck too and I just… could never really talk straight around him for ages. Alya immediately jumped on board the theory train and sort of got really invested in the idea… I mean I can talk to him _fine_ now thank you very much, but she still gives these little smug, proud grins and stuff whenever I don’t trip over my sentences around him. How do you tell a girl who thinks you’re in love with a guy that you actually have a ridiculous crush on _her_?”

“Huh.” Chat rubbed his chin, staring down at the floor. “That _is_ actually a bit more complicated than I thought it was going to be. What’s your biggest worry then about all this? _Aside from_ hypothetically potentially ruining your friendship,” he added quickly when Marinette opened her mouth. “I get the feeling you’re the sort of person who would worry about that a lot, regardless of who you had feelings for.”

As much as Marinette wanted to protest, she had to admit he was pretty much spot on about that. She sighed, and tried to organise her general mass of _fear_ into words.

“There’s… I just… What if she gets mad at me? About the Adrien thing? I tried denying it in the beginning, but apparently it wasn’t very effective when I kept stuttering at him, so eventually I just stopped trying to correct her. What if she holds that against me?”

“You’re catastrophizing,” Chat pointed out. He was starting to sound more amused than worried. “But even so, if that’s your biggest worry then I think you’re in the clear. You know Alya a lot better than I do, but even I don’t think she’s the sort of person who would flip out like that. She’s a reporter, she likes facts when she can get her hands on them. So give her facts. I’m sure everything will work out.”

“Ugh.” Marinette flung herself down on her mattress with a groan. “I feel like you’re too confident to give reliable advice. Maybe I should’ve asked Nino… No, that would’ve been embarrassing. Why is this so hard?”

“It doesn’t have to be hard.” The squeak of her desk chair was all the warning Marinette got before she felt the mattress dip near her waist – Chat always was ridiculously light on his feet, even in her room. “You don’t have to go out and tell her today either. Just work things through in your own time. Maybe you’ll never tell her – and though you may come to regret that, in the end it’s your decision to make. Just don’t let your fear be what stops you.”

Marinette folded her arms over her face and sighed into her sleeves. Her voice was muffled when she spoke. “Who gave you permission to be all logical and suave? What happened to my goofy kitty who whines pathetically when I beat him at video games?”

Somewhere above her Chat made an offended sound. “Me _ouch_. Are you saying I can’t be both?” Then he laughed, and Marinette rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see her do it.

Chat brushed a gloved hand lightly across the top of Marinette’s head before one of his hands alighted upon each of her shoulders. Marinette peeked up at him from between her arms, and found herself a little breathless at the soft expression on Chat’s face as he looked down at her. She would never know what she’d done to deserve his affection, but his friendship was something she would never take for granted.

“You need to rest,” Chat said simply. He tugged at her, firm but gentle, until Marinette was curled up on the bed, her head resting on his thigh. “Everything will be fine if you let it.”

With deft fingers he undid her pigtails and began slowly running his fingers through her hair.

Marinette wanted to protest – she still needed to study, Chat probably had things he needed to be doing, it was a weird time of day for a nap – but sleep _did_ sound like a nice idea. It had been more draining than she’d anticipated, actually saying the words out loud like that for the first time, so being able to just forget about life for a bit was an attractive thought.

She fell asleep to the low sound of Chat humming above her.

**oOoOo**

Sitting in class the next day, Marinette toyed idly with the edges of her newly acquired black-and-green bracelet.

When she’d woken up from her nap the previous day it had been dark out. She’d missed dinner, so quietly threw together some leftovers, and then retreated back to her room with a few cookies for Tikki as thanks for staying hidden away for so long while Chat was over.

She hadn’t seen it at first, but when it became apparent that she wouldn’t be getting back to sleep any time soon, Marinette had decided to work on some design sketches. The bracelet had been sitting on her desk atop a folded piece of paper.

_Sorry for using your stuff without asking,_ it read, _but I made you this. For luck._

The bracelet was obviously hand-made – just some wool plaited together with clumsy fingers from the scrap heap next to her chaise – but it had made her feel a little better about having talked with Chat about things. Sometimes she forgot how thoughtful he could be.

That being said, sitting next to Alya in class all day felt occasionally like an insurmountable challenge now that she’d given voice to her feelings, even if it was to a person who would never, ever tell anyone about them. Marinette had barely taken any notes, and it was only the thought of Chat silently cheering her on that kept her from saying or doing anything weird whenever Alya spoke to her or someone made another jibe about Adrien.

Chat had advised she take all the time she needed, but Marinette was no longer sure what to do with herself.

**oOoOo**

A week and a half had passed since Marinette’s talk with Chat.

Even with his pep talk and his good luck bracelet, every time Marinette envisioned telling Alya her imagination spiralled straight into self-destruction mode where doom and gloom was the only possible outcome.

She _knew_ she was being ridiculous. You didn’t even have to know Alya particularly well to know that revelations like Marinette’s weren’t the sort of thing that would have the reporter refusing to associate with her. But knowing it from a logical standpoint and _believing_ it in her heart were two very different things.

Chat had suggested she take her time. But Marinette knew herself well enough to know, after the week she’d had, that time was not the issue. If she let herself, she would quite readily put things off until the day they either blew up in her face or she took it to the grave. She knew she could live like that – she’d already spent a year doing it – but that didn’t make it the best course of action.

Ladybug would just tell her, consequences be damned. Not only was Ladybug confident, but she was anonymous in a way that Marinette would never be.

Essentially, there were two paths open to Marinette. She could spend forever moping about it in silence, or she could force herself to speak.

Only one of those would let her know how Alya felt.

Only one of those left her vulnerable.

There was only one thing she could do.

Confess.

**oOoOo**

Marinette was pacing nervously in the living room. She was endlessly thankful that her parents were busy with the bakery and weren’t around to see her. Normally she did all of her nervous pacing in her room, but that was currently out of the question since Alya was upstairs, waiting for her to come back.

After trying to psych herself up and convince herself that yes, she was really going to do this, she’d managed to invite Alya around after school without coming across as too weird, but she’d immediately chickened out once they were in her room and had fled downstairs.

Because Alya was amazing and intuitive Marinette probably only had about five minutes max before she stormed down after her to see what was up, and Marinette would feel a lot better about having that conversation in the relative privacy of her room, but…

Marinette slapped her cheeks gently. “Come on,” she whispered to herself. “Chat believes in you, why can’t you believe in yourself for five minutes?”

She exhaled shakily and dug deep into the Ladybug part of herself, searching for strength. When her hands had more or less stopped trembling she put some cookies on a plate and resolutely headed back upstairs.

Alya was sitting in front of the computer, editing something on the Ladyblog. (She’d known Marinette’s password almost from the very beginning, and she’d never seen any point in changing it.) Though her typing slowed when Marinette climbed through the trapdoor, she pointedly didn’t immediately focus her attention on her.

Marinette placed the plate on the edge of the desk, then flitted agitatedly about the room, shuffling papers and fluffing cushions and ultimately just stalling.

When she started fidgeting with the material in her scrap pile Alya sighed.

“Come on girl, I know you didn’t invite me over so I could watch you clean your room.”

Marinette let out a startled squeak and straightened up, but refused to turn around.

“I can tell something’s up. I’m just not sure if it’s the sort of thing I should try and coax out of you, or the sort of thing I should just leave alone.”

Her face felt warm; Marinette was sure she was bright red – she’d always blushed easily. She should have known Alya wouldn’t give her time to think – not that time to think was going to help do anything but exacerbate her nerves.

“Is this an Adrien thing?” Alya prodded.

Marinette’s hands stilled. Hearing Adrien’s name sent a cold wash of… not confidence but perhaps _determination_ through her. He was truly a dear classmate and sort-of friend, but it _irritated_ her that, even though she’d brought Alya up here meaning to spill her guts, the situation was determined to find a way to be about Adrien.

She spun on her heel, a little angry in spite of it all.

“Why does everything have to be about Adrien?” Marinette demanded, the words spilling from her mouth entirely unchecked. “He’s cool and all but he’s not the person I’m trying to confess to.”

Alya, hand partway raised as though to interrupt what she had expected to become a rant, sat back in Marinette’s desk chair, her eyebrows furrowed in thought and lips pressed into a speculative line.

In the silence, Marinette processed what she’d actually said. The blush came back full force; she wanted to hide, but she was frozen in place by Alya’s assessing stare.

There were two ways Alya could interpret what she’d just said. There was the truth – that Marinette was in love with the journalist – and then there was the possibility that she wanted Alya’s help with confessing to some other non-Adrien entity. Marinette wasn’t sure which conclusion she wanted Alya to come to.

She tugged anxiously at Chat’s bracelet and averted her gaze.

Alya’s voice was soft when she next spoke, gentle and a little hesitant.

“Mari…” she paused, and Marinette heard her clear her throat. “Mari, are you… did you just say what I think you just said?”

Marinette tried to shrug, maybe brush it off, because this was not how things were supposed to go down she was _supposed to be better than this_ , but her arms wouldn’t cooperate. She hung her head, closed her eyes, and nodded, just slightly.

The chair creaked as Alya stood up. Her footsteps were loud in the quiet of the room as she moved closer. Marinette screwed her eyes shut tighter; she didn’t want to see the look on Alya’s face.

Warm fingers brushed against the back of Marinette’s hand. She flinched in surprise, but didn’t pull away. They lingered, a barely-there touch.

“Marinette, look at me.” There was a pleading note in Alya’s voice. It made Marinette _so curious_ , but her fear would always outweigh her curiosity in moments like this. She shook her head.

The fingers left her hand and came up to cup Marinette’s cheek instead. The touch was feather-soft against her skin and she ached to lean into it. She held her ground.

“Mari, _please_.”

The fight faded from her stance. Marinette could never say no to Alya when she sounded like that – gentle, pleading, desperate. It hurt to be the one who put her in that mood to begin with. Cautiously, she opened her eyes, and allowed Alya to tilt her face back up to meet her gaze.

“There we go,” Alya breathed, rubbing her thumb across Marinette’s cheekbone. “Look at me, trust me, and use your words. I don’t want to misunderstand this and do something stupid.”

Marinette’s breath caught in her throat. Alya was watching her with such fondness that for a moment she wasn’t even sure what words were.

“I…” she swallowed thickly. Allowed herself to take comfort from Alya’s touch. Tried a feeble, wobbly smile. “I was trying to… I wanted to say…” She glanced away, steadied herself, and met Alya’s eyes. “I’minlovewithyou!”

Marinette cringed. That wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind, but the words were out now, and she knew Alya was well trained in understanding all sorts of Marinette-speak. She desperately wanted to look away again, but forced herself to stand tall, to not let her embarrassment make it seem like she was ashamed to feel that way.

Alya smiled.

The hand on her cheek disappeared, but before Marinette had a chance to worry that maybe she’d done something wrong after all she was wrapped in a bone-crushing embrace. Alya laughed into her neck, and if it sounded a little like sobbing Marinette certainly wasn’t going to point it out. Hesitantly, she wrapped her own arms around Alya’s waist.

It was nice, holding and being held, even when everything else was still up in the air.

After a few minutes, Alya pulled back. Marinette let her arms fall back to her sides, unsure, waiting for some sort of sign. Alya’s eyes were glassy, a little damp, but she was still smiling.

“Oh my god, Mari, you have _no idea_ how glad I am to hear you say that.”

Marinette blinked at her in surprise, lips parting for a question she couldn’t voice. She’d been so worried that this would mess everything up, that her feelings would be a burden or whatever else, that she hadn’t even really stopped to contemplate what might happen on the other end of the scale.

Alya grabbed her hands, holding them in the space between their bodies.

“I’m not going to ask you anything else right now, because you look like you might combust,” she teased gently. “But this is a _good thing_ Marinette. Don’t let your panic tell you otherwise. I know how you get. This?” she squeezed Marinette’s hands. “This is going to be _amazing_. I want you to believe that. Understand?”

Marinette nodded slowly, reflexively tightening her grip on Alya’s hands.

“I… Does that… Do you…?”

“ _Yes_.” Alya leaned forward and kissed Marinette’s cheek. It was nothing new – they were affectionate friends – but it felt charged now. It burned Marinette’s skin pleasantly. When she pulled back, Alya’s face was flushed, and she knew she felt it too.

Marinette made a flustered sound and buried her face in Alya’s shoulder.

“Come on, we need to sit you down before you collapse.”

Marinette allowed Alya to pull her over to the chaise and drag her down to sit. She smiled softly, looking down at their clasped hands, and wondered what she’d ever done to deserve the affection of someone like Alya.

She knew they still needed to talk, and they would once her face stopped trying to be a traffic light and she regained the ability to speak in complete sentences, but for now, Marinette just felt light, like an enormous weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

Chat had been right. She’d been working herself into a nervous frenzy trying to predict the outcome of a confession when all she’d really needed to do was _look_ at Alya and trust that everything would be fine.

And everything _would_ be fine.

She loved and was loved in return. Everything else would fall into place later.


End file.
